


Yearning To Be Saved

by Obsessivecompulsivereadr



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: But Alec does not appear in the fic, M/M, Reference to Alec, spoilers for Parabatai Lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 08:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9376379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessivecompulsivereadr/pseuds/Obsessivecompulsivereadr
Summary: Magnus wants so much for this man to be worthy of the sacrifices Alec makes for him. And he truly believes Jace has the potential to be worthy, if Jace could only believe in himself as well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have never had a show give me so many plot bunnies at one time so quickly after beginning to watch it. Someone needs to stop me because I have other WIPs to finish.

Ragnor Fell would definitely mock him if he were privy to just how many shadowhunters had been granted access to Magnus's home in the past two weeks.  

Even Victor Aldertree had gotten through his wards during a moment of weakness, when Magnus had been exhausted and too concerned about Alec to remember to bar him from the premises.  Alec might have had more time to spend with Jace had Magnus not failed to prevent Aldertree gaining access to the man.  

It doesn’t matter _now_ , now that Jace is back safe at the Institute, the truth having come to light about his manipulation by Valentine.  But that night, when Magnus hadn’t been sure Alec was strong enough to handle another separation, he might have prevented Jace’s incarceration if only he’d been more aware and less drained.   _If only_.  

Now that Magnus has had time, the problem is remedied.  Only, Alec, his siblings, Clary, and Luke have unhindered access to his home.  Though why he continues to just let them in is beyond him.  

Luke’s permission makes sense, as he is the current Alpha of the werewolves.  He’s expected to have easy access to Magnus due to their need to work together for the good of downworlders.  

Simon is on his first probation and has limited access for the purposes of teaching.  Raphael is on his _third_ .   _Vampires_.  

Magnus sighs.  He might as well conjure up a sign above his dwelling that says “ _Bring me your misguided, hot-headed, and foolhardy.  Your huddled masses yearning to be saved._ ”  

Though his wards are strong, he is normally approachable by any downworlder.  He must be as the High Warlock of Brooklyn because it’s required for him to be able to do his job to the best of his ability.

But shadowhunters?  Whatever happened to his vow?  

Magnus is just full of contradictions lately, because since the moment he met Alec Lightwood he’d forgone any vow he’d previously made to avoid helping shadowhunters.  To stay out of their business.  To stay under the radar and out of the way.

So the Lightwoods, Biscuit, and Wayland have access at nearly any time.  Magnus sighs again.

Alec.  Alec… Magnus would allow in at any time of the day.  

 _Or night,_ he thinks to himself with a bit of a self-satisfied smirk.

Magnus is preparing a potion for his latest client when he feels the wards give way and Jace Wayland walks into his living room.  

“Jace?” Magnus places the mortar and pestle down on the table in front of him.  “Is everything alright?”  

“Yeah.  I mean, yes.  Everything’s fine.”  Jace glances around the room, obviously uncomfortable with this visit.  

Magnus watches him for a moment.  Jace looks much better than he had the last time he was in this room.  His face is healed, and his gait isn’t suggestive of anything wrong with him.  He’s not bleeding, which is also a change for the shadowhunter.  He’s wearing hunting clothes, though he does not appear to have just come from killing a demon.  At least not a corporeal one.

“What can I help you with?” Magnus walks over and pours himself two fingers of vodka.  “Can I offer you something?  You appear to need it.”

Magnus conjures a similar shot glass into Jace’s hand, and the man throws back the vodka without hesitation.  

“I came to say thank you,” Jace blurts out almost as soon as he finishes swallowing the liquor.  

Magnus presses his lips together to keep himself from smiling.  The look on his face suggests that it had physically hurt him to express that gratitude.

“For?” Magnus drinks his shot and holds up the bottle, silently asking Jace if he would care for another.  At Jace’s nod, he magically refills the small glass in the man’s hand, and Jace downs it almost as quickly as the first.  

“For keeping Alec alive until I could get here,” Jace looks around the room, looking everywhere but at Magnus.  

“No thank you is necessary for that.  A thank you implies that I was owed a debt of gratitude for keeping someone I care about greatly from dying.  To me, that is a duty that requires no compensation of any kind.”  

Magnus watches as Jace absorbs his words.  Jace nods in acknowledgement and then puts his shot glass down on the table.  Magnus gestures for him to sit, and Jace does so, on the couch nearby.  Magnus clears the table with a wave of his hand, his cauldron and ingredients appearing on the table in the other room.  The potion isn’t dangerous or poisonous to Jace, but the potion itself is unpredictable, and Magnus doesn’t want it to literally explode in Jace’s face.  Especially now that he’s healed up from the last time his face was injured.  

“Still.  Izzy told me you stayed with him the whole time.  And Clary said you used up nearly all of your magic.  Even Raj was impressed with your dedication to saving Alec.”  

Magnus very much doubts Raj was actually impressed, but rather intimidated.  

He takes a seat on the armchair of the couch and turns to Jace, “I am very… fond...of your brother.  I could not accept his death if there was anyway I could prevent it.  I could not stop trying.”  

“Alec is like that, you know,” Jace stands and heads over to the window.  “He inspires things like loyalty and respect in people.  Izzy would do anything for him.”  

Including turning Jace over to Aldertree, but Magnus did not plan to mention that fact in case Jace was unaware of it.  

“She even turned me in to Aldertree,”  Jace says softly.

“Jace,” Magnus begins but before he can even speak of Izzy’s decision, Jace interrupts.

“I understand why.  She felt like she had no choice.  Alec’s life was on the line, and she had to make the difficult choice.  The one Alec would never make.”  

Magnus sighs because he knows firsthand exactly how much Jace is correct in that assumption.  Alec wouldn’t make the choice that put himself above Jace.  To rescue himself first.  And from what Magnus knows of the man, it’s not because he feels Jace is _more_ .   It’s because Alec thinks he himself is _less_.  And he could not be any more wrong.

“Would you have?”  Magnus asked.  Would Jace have made the decision to put Alec first had their positions been reversed?  Would Jace have been willing to use the adamas to find Alec?

“I would like to say yes, but I don’t know,” Jace turns and looks at him.  “Alec is my brother, and my parabatai.  But what Izzy said when I came back from Idris was true.  My decisions end up hurting him.”

“So stop making those,” Magnus says, without any heat to his words.  Fighting with Jace would do neither of them any good and would only cause Alec pain.  

“I don’t know how,” Jace replies.  “He always seems to suffer for me.”

“Yes, he does,” Magnus answers.  

He doesn’t plan to place judgement on Jace, but he also isn’t planning to deny that Jace’s impulsive behaviors nearly always lead to situations that force Alec into impulsive behaviors in response.  

 _Two huddled masses yearning to be saved_.  

With a bond between them that will be the death of both of them.  Magnus wonders if perhaps it’s that very bond the two need to be _saved from_.

“I’ve apologized to him for that.  For running off with Clary and for blaming him when everything went wrong.  And for leaving with Valentine.  For everything.”  Jace looks uncomfortable with the admission, as if he hadn’t planned to say it at all.

“That’s good.  But I hardly think that it should matter to you whether I know that,” Magnus pours himself another drink and moves to his chair.  “So why does it?”

“Because you’re important to Alec,” Jace says.   

“You are as well.  You’re his parabatai.  Only your bond could have saved him.  He lost himself on his way to you.  Only you could have brought that part of him back.”  

Magnus knows because he had tried everything, even a true love’s kiss that had held more desperation than belief behind it.  He’s not surprised that it didn’t work because the adamas taps into the bond itself, and the piece of soul it carved out to search for Jace could only return on its own.  When Jace did.

“Why are you making this so hard for me?” Jace exclaims as he turned around.  “Why are you being so kind to me?  I almost killed him!”  

“No, that’s your guilt and your grief speaking for you,” Magnus rises and crosses over to him.  “ _Alec_ chose to use the stone.   _Jocelyn_ was the one to manipulate him into the idea.   _Isabelle_ was the one who agreed it might be the only way.   _I_ was the whose magic failed him, and _you_ were the one to save him.”  

Magnus wants so much for this man to be worthy of the sacrifices Alec makes for him. And he truly believes Jace has the potential to be worthy, if Jace could only believe in himself as well.  

“But I almost didn’t!!” Jace breaks apart and slides down the wall.  “I almost didn’t save him.  I could feel him take his last breath.”  

“I know,” Magnus says softly and crouches in front of him.  “I could feel it, too.”  

It had been a moment Magnus was not prepared for.  To feel this strongly for someone he's known for so short a period of time.  The magnitude of grief that had hit him in that moment had been almost staggering for Magnus.

“I didn’t know!” Jace cries.

“You didn’t know what?”

“I was so cocky.  Alec was right.  I’m so damned cocky,” Jace wipes tears from his cheek.  “I had no idea what this bond does to him.  Or to me.  I’ve never felt what he felt because Alec has never done to me what I did to him!”

“Jace, I will never claim to understand your culture.  But parabatais are... _special_.  And now that you really know the breadth and importance of this decision, perhaps the two of you can find a way to become less careless with each other.”  

Special is not the word Magnus would like to use to describe the concept of parabatais.  

 _Stupid.  Dangerous_ .   _Out-dated_ .   Magnus snorted lightly at the idea of a warlock as old as he calling something else _out-dated_.  

Jace nods and moves to stand, so Magnus does as well.  

“We decide who our parabatai is before we’re eighteen years old, you know.”  

“Yes, I know.”  

“He didn’t want to, at first.  He doesn’t know that I know that.”  

“That’s probably something you should discuss with him instead of me, Jace,” Magnus says as he returns to his chair and conjures another drink for himself.  At this rate, he’ll be unable to finish his potion later due to his level of intoxication.   _Shadowhunters._  

“I know why now.”  

Magnus turns his head away in discomfort.  He’d rather Jace not continue this segment of the conversation.  Alec has his own issues to work out that involve Jace, and discussing them with Jace makes Magnus’s skin crawl.  As if he’s invading and inserting himself into conversations that he should not be a part of.

“Jace, I don’t think…”

“He loves me,” Jace says.  “Or loved, I think.  And I had no idea until the demon.  But even then I didn’t really know.  He tried to tell me later, when he apologized about me seeing the memory.  But I brushed him off.  Told him I understood.  That we were brothers.  And that he loved me and I loved him.  But I was wrong. About _how_ he loved me.  That’s why he didn’t want to become my parabatai.  The only relationship that parabatais cannot have, by decree, is a romantic one.”  

Magnus closes his eyes as Jace rambles, making connections that Magnus is sure Alec would be horrified about.  

He imagines Alec, as a young boy, struggling with both his attraction to other men as a whole and the pull towards his intended parabatai.  He places a hand over his heart, feeling a burst of sympathy in his chest for the boy Magnus will never know.  What he must have felt like, knowing that his feelings for Jace couldn’t be returned.  How he must have struggled to make the decision to go ahead with the parabatai bond.  How much power that decision must have had in his decision to hide his feelings from everyone.

Even now, out to his family, Alec still struggles with drawing attention to himself.  He struggles with feeling like he has a right to be open.  To be loved.

Magnus smiles at the memory of Alec so awkwardly trying to ask him out again, his head ducked to avoid attracting attention, and his eyes darting around the room to make sure no one heard.  He’s shown such progress on being open with his feelings, and Magnus couldn’t help but grin at him as he stuttered and hesitated through his invitation.  

“I should go.  I need to apologize to him again.  For something else entirely.”  

“Jace, I don’t know.  That could cause even more issues than you’d solve. Especially if you leap into it without due consideration.”  

“I could hurt him again, you mean,” Jace adds.  

Magnus nods.  

"I won't say it yet.  Until I think it through.  I'm going to fix this.  Be less careless with him.  Because he deserves to not have any more pain in his life."  

Magnus nods his head in agreement.   Jace also deserves to not have any more pain in his life.  If the two could learn to live as parabatais without reckless and thoughtless behaviors, then everyone else in their lives will breathe easier as well.

Jace smiles at him suddenly, “You should see him smile when someone mentions you.”  

Magnus twists his mouth into a bit of a smirk and gestures towards the doorway.  “You’d better get going.  I have to get back to work.”  He doubts Alec would like that information being given to Magnus, and he would prefer not to give Alec a reason to feel any discomfort.

“I’m glad it’s you, you know.”  

“Oh?”

“I’m glad he found you,” Jace continues.  “I’m glad he found someone who would make the hard decisions.  Someone to choose him first.”  

Magnus nods in acknowledgement, “Thank you.”  

He thinks now that he and Jace could get along famously, as two people who care so very much about a man who barely cares for himself.  

Jace as his parabatai and brother.  Magnus as his… _something_.  

“But if he asks about this conversation, it never happened,” Jace’s voice interrupts his thought.

“Agreed.  And I’ll certainly deny that you ever cried,” Magnus gestures as if to shoo him out of the room.  “Though Clary might find that charming.”

Jace points at him, “Seriously, she’s my sister.  I do not need comments like that.”  

Magnus laughs, “Remind me to tell you about that sibling pair sometime.”  

“No!” Jace backs towards the door and turns to leave.  

Magnus watches him go and then, with a wave of his hand, gets back to work.  


End file.
